1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a method for suppressing image artifacts in a magnetic resonance imaging apparatus (MRI, or NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance)).
2. Description of the Prior Art
In a magnetic resonance imaging apparatus, at least one region of an examination subject is charged with RF pulses during a measuring scan. The examination subject is disposed in a fundamental or static magnetic field for acquiring the measured data. A phase-coding gradient and a read-out gradient are subsequently generated, with the resulting magnetic resonance signal occurring under each pulse of the read-out gradient being sampled. The samples acquired in this manner for each pulse of the read-out gradient are entered in a row of a raw data matrix. The direction of the data entry in the matrix corresponds to the polarity of the pulses of the read-out gradient. The raw data matrix is subjected to a two-dimensional Fourier transformation for acquiring an image matrix. An image of the examination subject is acquired from the image matrix.
The measuring or processing conditions for the measured signals change from scan to scan, i.e., from row to row of the raw data matrix, when imaging with specific pulse sequences. This occurs, for example, in the echo planar method as disclosed in German OS 27 55 956 and in the RARE method, described in the periodical "Magnetic Resonance Imaging," Vol. 6, pp. 391-395 (1988). If only slight deviations occur from row to row, this results in an image artifact known as "N/2 ghosts" which means that in an image matrix of N.times.N points, the actual image is seen again shifted by N/2 points in the positive and negative directions with respect to the middle of the image matrix, generally with a different intensity from the primary image. Further, inhomogeneities in the static field and non-linearities of the gradient fields can cause image distortions.